


Send Away for a Perfect World

by shopfront



Category: The Chronicles of Riddick Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-20
Updated: 2008-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1623989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/pseuds/shopfront
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyra is a survivor, but she's stubborn, and Aereon always has an agenda. (Missing scene from the Chronicles of Riddick film. Warnings for imprisonment and brief/implied torture.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Send Away for a Perfect World

**Author's Note:**

> A thousand thanks to the ever amazing and beautiful Amanda for hand-holding, correcting, and nitpicking when asked.  
> Title taken from the lyrics of the song '45' by Shinedown.
> 
> Written for featherxquill

 

 

"It will be easier if you do what they want."

It's the first thing she says. The first thing she always says when she walks through that door, and quite possibly the only piece of slightly biased truth anyone has offered her since she arrived in the Armada.

"Maybe I don't like doing what other people want," she snarls, and throws her weight against her chains, pulling them tight with a clang. The Elemental is still just out of her reach, though closer than any of the others have come, and she just laughs and glides around Kyra to settle on a bench.

"You are lucky that the Lord Marshall has taken such an interest in you. Very few throw themselves on the Necromongers' mercy, then refuse conversion and live to tell of it."

"You did."

"I never asked for their mercy. But it seems you and I are alike. We both still live because we are connected to Riddick."

Kyra makes one final, half-hearted move towards Aereon just to hear her chains rattle, before backing off enough to get the slack needed to settle into a crouch.

"Why are you here?"

"Because the Lord Marshall wished it so, and because it will be easier if you do what they want."

"I don't _care_ if it's easier. I've never had easy." Her fingers itch for a blade, but it's hard to arm herself when she's chained to a wall day and night.

"Oh, I never said it'll be easier on you," Aereon chuckles and slips to her feet. "They do mean it when they warn you that the conversion will hurt."

Kyra frowns and tangles her fingers in her chains while she watches Aereon pause at the foot of the stairs that lead up to the door.

"The Lord Marshall fancies that if I explain the odds of your situation to you, you will join him. A loyal Necromonger by his side who was once a companion to a man who posed the greatest possible threat to him is, I think, a thought that both amuses and reassures him. You would do well to remember that I calculate the odds of many different things, however, and that I am as much a prisoner as you."

With that she leaves. Kyra is a half pace behind where she needs to be by the time the door slams shut, her mind distracted and confused, and the lowest loop of her chains is still scraping the floor when it glows and magnetises. 

She's yanked to the floor with the chain; she writhes and shrieks as the glow brightens and the floor begins to crackle and hum. Sparks and currents dance along her skin as her vision darkens. Her last thought is how disappointed Riddick would be that she didn't get off the floor in time, that she couldn't get her arse moving quick enough.

  


* * *

  


"Is she still alive?"

"Yes, my Lord Marshall."

"I was told she wasn't as weak and pathetic as most breeders. That she could keep up with _Riddick_. If she could keep up with Riddick then she should certainly be able to stay off that floor."

Two male voices. Kyra moans and experimentally wriggles her fingers. There are large, rough hands on her face and throat, shifting and dancing faster than she can follow, but she can't seem to find the strength to do anything about it.

"I can tend to her. She's not in any condition to do much besides listen, anyway."

There's a lengthy pause, and Kyra struggles to open her eyes but the light sends lances of pain through her head and they flutter closed again almost against her will. Not that she needs to see to picture the staring contest taking place above her. You didn't need to spend long in the presence of the Lord Marshall or the Elemental to realise they'd be at constant loggerheads with each other.

"Very well." The first voice is wary, considering, then it rises: "Guards, leave them both. Oh, and Aereon, do make the most of this opportunity. My patience is reaching its breaking point." There's an audible swirl of his cape as he turns to leave, and Kyra has to choke down a laugh - not for fear of reprisal but because she has a sinking feeling that to do so at this point would hurt like a bitch.

"There now, stop trying to move." Aereon's voice is soft and close by, and her hands are dry but gentle, and bring a strange sensation like eddies of air to her cheeks and hair. "That's the first time you've been caught on the floor since they told you what it can do, isn't it." It's not a question. "It seems the odds of you having an easy time of it are low whether you give in to his demands or not."

"You don't have to sound so pleased," Kyra snaps, but her words lack bite when her voice is so brittle and cracked.

"If I am pleased, it's not for the reasons you think," Aereon replies, and smiles when Kyra finally succeeds at opening her eyes. The Elemental is bent over her, close enough to speak softly and avoid being overheard. "I'm not interested in seeing you suffer, but in seeing Riddick win."

Her body shudders to hear those words, emotional pain made physical. "Nobody can win when they're already dead." Her voice sounds leaden and despairing, even to her own ears.

"The odds are that you are right, and that Riddick is probably dead. I would not have believed it possible had the story of events only come from Lord Vaako's lips, but I'm inclined to believe it from you. However, Riddick has never been entirely predictable by my calculations."

"He's dead."

"Perhaps. It would truly be a feat for him to both beat the odds to survive and return to Helium Prime in time to rejoin the Armada. It would be against all calculation that he could return and defeat the Lord Marshall."

"You've said it yourself, more than once, the odds of his survival are almost non-existent." Kyra tries to push herself up, suddenly desperate to escape the gentle hands smoothing back her hair, the words trying to give her a cruel, false hope. 

"The odds are, indeed. Did you know that Elementals don't have any gods? We prefer to believe in logic and calculation, but if I was to have a faith - any faith - I think it would be in Riddick. In his ability to continually prove my calculations wrong." 

The hands follow her as she sits up, moving to her shoulders and back to support her as she half crawls towards the wall.

"Stop it. Just stop it!" Her muscles are twitching at the exertion. That damn floor did more damage than she'd expected from the laughing threats the Necromonger guarding her cell had made. "Riddick isn't coming back, he _doesn't_ come back. Not when I need him, and not when I saw him dead beneath a burning sky." _Please._

To Kyra's surprise, Aereon does stop. She quietly helps Kyra prop herself up, and then retreats to the bench she always uses on the far side of the cell. They both sit there in heavy silence for a long time, with only Kyra's heavy breathing to break the stillness. The ache in her muscles is seeping away surprisingly easily given how quickly the Necromongers' strange forms of torture were able to knock her out, and Kyra can't help but worry at how deceptive that might be.

The Lord Marshall had seemed honestly curious about whether it had killed her or not.

"Regardless of where Riddick is right now, and I honestly don't believe I could begin an accurate calculation on the subject, I can tell you the odds of something else. If he does return, having you out of this cell rather than chained within it will make it easier for both of you to get out alive-"

-Kyra makes a noise of protest at this, but Aereon holds up one hand and pierces her with a steady stare until she subsides with a grimace.

"The odds also are that if you are correct, and Riddick is dead, that the conversion process will not be easier on you than this cell has been. Both are tools of the Lord Marshall to ready you for life as a true Necromonger, free of physical pain. But once the conversion process is over, things will get better for you. You may not like them, and you may not like what they do, but right now the Necromongers are the only option you have. There is no one else."

Aereon gives her a small, knowing smile and turns away to blow air on her fingers. They sit like that again, in silence with Kyra curled around her chains and Aereon amusing herself by creating small currents in the air, until the Lord Marshall returns. He turns a hard, questioning stare on Aereon as soon as he enters, and she nods in reply.

"The girl will join your ranks," is all she says she glides past him. He turns a triumphant smile on Kyra and spreads his arms in what she thinks he believes is a magnanimous pose. She doesn't protest.

"Now you will have a people and a future in the Underverse," he begins. Kyra bows her heads and agrees at all the right moments without listening too carefully to the meaning. She wonders what the Elemental's calculations about her were as she's lead to join the ranks of new converts, and how often Aereon relies on other people simply following her lead.

 


End file.
